Twitter Business Plan Contest

March 2, 2008

Does microblogging application Twitter have legitimate business uses? Maggie, Ann and Andy couldn’t settle it almost a year ago. Let’s prove it. Right here, right now.

If Twitter does have a business use, it follows that one should be able to use it for a basic business purpose: writing a business plan. Sure, there’s a <140 character limit. Think of it as a short texty multiplatform realtime elevator pitch. Here’s what I propose:

For the next week (through midnight Saturday, 3/8) tweet a business plan to me. I tweet as hoovers, so you’ll need to start your post with @hoovers to send it to me. Yes, that means you have 32 characters left for your business plan

Encapsulate the business idea in a single tweet – no “Star Wars” serial-type biz plans. I’ll never get to ‘Episode IV: A New Hope’ and that was the best one

I’ll choose the winning entry based on whoever communicates the most complete idea in the most elegant fashion. Completely subjective. So is ‘American Idol’. There’s no record deal at stake here and I’m nicer than Simon. And I’ll post all entries on this blog, space (and taste) permitting

Treat it as a fun brainstorming exercise. Don’t tweet me something that you plan to execute if you’re not ready to share with the world. I have 3-4 business ideas per week just for exercise; use one of those, not your next Microsoft